


Milestones

by Anoke



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Arson, Banter, Boys In Love, Boys Kissing, Demisexual Lambert (The Witcher), Developing Relationship, Holding Hands, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kissing, Lambert is bad at talking about his feelings, M/M, Murder, Murder Basement, Other, Serial Killers, Thunderstorms, probable overuse of the word 'fuck'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:55:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26212264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anoke/pseuds/Anoke
Summary: Aiden and Lambert deal with a serial killer and their feelings.
Relationships: Aiden/Lambert (The Witcher)
Comments: 43
Kudos: 135





	Milestones

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I felt really bad about all the Aiden torture in [my other fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25129732/chapters/60885946) keeping people from getting a look at what I think the Cat is like when he's not being kept as a pet by a mad scientist mage... and I wound up with a Lambert POV fic. Well, at least he's here.
> 
> More detailed warnings in the end notes.

Lambert _wanted_ to be able to blame Aiden for this, but that would be reaching to a degree that even he wouldn't be able to justify. But here they were—'they' being himself and his fucking _dumbass_ of a Cat—having just taken out _multiple_ wraiths of _varying_ configurations at what Lambert was pretty sure was some soon-to-be-dead serial killer noble's hunting lodge, and stuck there for at least the night due to the massive thunderstorm that was absolutely washing out the road up to the lodge.

“ _Nobody_ has this many wraiths haunting their fuckin’ place unless they’re responsible for ‘em,” he snapped at Aiden, who was throwing out increasingly-wild alternative hypotheses for the good two dozen wraiths they’d just finished putting down. “Bet there's a murder basement we haven’t found yet.”

Aiden sighed, suddenly sounding exhausted. “You’re probably right. Want the east end or west end?”

“West,” Lambert said immediately. He thought he’d caught a tiny whiff of decay down there, something Aiden wouldn’t have picked up on with his inferior Cat nose, and Aiden wasn’t as— he tended to be more hurt over people being fucking monsters, and if there were more wraiths he might get taken by fucking surprise.

Once he was really looking for it, he managed to track the very faint decay down to a decorative wood inlay in a wall. He almost just bashed the damn thing down, but Aiden coming running because he’d heard Lambert would defeat the whole purpose. It actually took him a minute or two to find the keyhole, but once he had it only took about thirty seconds to pick. He’d developed the skill because he was, in fact, capable of recognizing that some situations might call for subtlety, unlike certain Geralt-shaped people he knew. The smell of decay got a little stronger as the panel swung open, but it wasn’t nearly enough to account for even one dead body, much less ones for all the wraiths. Maybe the noble wasn’t the kind to keep trophies.

Once he was down the stairs, Lambert, as per usual, _immediately_ regretted his previous thought. The noble was _absolutely_ one to keep trophies. He had something like twenty variably-preserved human bodies in multiple states of mutilation down in the murder basement. If Lambert had still had a gag reflex, he might have actually thrown up.

 _The biggest problem,_ Lambert thought, facing the horrific wall of corpses, _is that I don’t know if I can set all of these on fire without the whole place going up._

It wasn’t as if he wouldn’t be perfectly happy to burn the place to the ground, particularly after trashing this room and its various contents thoroughly, but he didn’t particularly want to explain any of this bullshit to Aiden.

Fuck.

The murder basement was floored and faced in stone, at least. Maybe if he took it a few at a time—? No, the smoke would almost certainly get overwhelming. Fucking shit, if he wanted to hide this he wasn’t going to be able to deal with it until they could leave. And the wraiths would absolutely be tied to their bodies and would probably reform within the next day or two.

“ _Fuck,_ ” Lambert muttered, and headed back out of the basement to raid the linen closets.

Aiden came wandering down the hall with a huge armful of jewelry and other possible sentimental items about the time Lambert was ready to close the hidden door again, having taken down and wrapped all the bodies.

“Lambert?” Aiden asked.

“We can’t burn this shit in here,” Lambert said, resigned, and held out an extra pillowcase. “Not while we need to wait out the storm, anyway.”

Aiden dumped the shit into the pillowcase, looking grim. “How bad is it?” he asked.

“Bad,” Lambert said, knotting the pillowcase closed.

“There’s a lean-to not too far out,” Aiden said. “We could haul everything out there and burn it all.”

Lambert only had to think about that for a few seconds. Aiden knew he’d found the murder basement, and had a working brain; it wasn’t as if he wouldn’t be able to conjure plenty of horrific scenarios himself.

“Let’s,” Lambert said. “Got everything bundled downstairs. And take your damn armor off, I’m not helping you dry that fucking leather vest.”

“You had a leather jacket until that griffin wrecked it,” Aiden commented, but started undoing buckles.

They got drenched, of course, even hauling bodies out two at a time. Neither of them was religious, so they just set the lean-to and all the shit in it aflame with Igni, faces set. Aiden looked like he was fixing to stand there until the blaze went out, standing stock-still in the downpour as the roof collapsed in a shower of sparks, but Lambert nudged him.

“Come on. I don’t know about you, but I’d prefer to not be hauling my soggy ass down that road without any sleep.”

“Ah?” Aiden said, a little startled. “Oh. Yeah.” He took one more look at the lean-to but let Lambert lead him back into the lodge.

* * *

The weather hadn’t improved in the slightest the next morning.

“Seriously, what the fuck is this?” Lambert asked.

“Penitent?” Aiden offered, leaning over Lambert’s shoulder to look out at the rain.

Lambert pushed him back by his face, saying “Penitents bring fog, not storms, and we haven’t seen any glyphs around, have we?”

Aiden licked his hand—joke was on him, that didn’t gross Lambert out at _all_ —and said something into Lambert’s palm.

“What,” Lambert said, taking his hand away.

“If it’s unnatural, it’s probably either that or a mage,” Aiden said. “We have records of a penitent that brought a massive storm down, at a Prince’s private gladiatorial arena. There’d been so many deaths and so much pain there—”

Lambert groaned. “Okay, but we still haven’t found any glyphs. If they were gonna be somewhere, they’d be in the murder basement, right?”

“ _Was_ that the murder basement?” Aiden asked.

Lambert spun around, about to say something disbelieving, but frowned instead. “What are you getting at?”

“I mean, I didn’t get the best look, but that looked more like a display hall than a workspace,” Aiden said.

“ _Shit._ ”

Aiden was right, was the thing. There _had_ been a bunch of torture instruments down there, but with the bodies the way they were, it was completely plausible that they had been— _props_ , of some sort, rather than what the fucker had actually used.

“Since I figured it out, do I get to make you help me dry my armor?” Aiden asked, mouth set in a grim line.

“We’re using the money from this to get you something other than godsdamn leather,” Lambert said, and spun around to collect his shit.

* * *

Some consultation of the map they had gave them a couple of possible locations for the actual murder workspace. Neither of them were particularly interested in taking their horses out in the storm, so they got to stay in the stable, with more hay and fresh water from the almost-overflowing cistern.

“I’m gonna be really sad if we get hit by lightning,” Aiden said in a half-shout as they started out into the storm. It was light enough to not need Cat to try and navigate, but the rain was coming down so hard they were only a couple of meters apart anyway.

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Lambert called back. “Not falling off a fucking cliff or getting gutted by a storm-building penitent?”

“We could prevent either of those, lightning is just a matter of bad luck,” Aiden said.

Lambert scowled, but Aiden wasn’t exactly wrong.

Wind howled around them, sending the limbs of the trees lashing back and forth. Flashes of lightning were near-blinding against the darkness of the clouds and the woods, and the thunder and the pounding of the rain made it a bitch and a half to hear anything. Lambert wearily contemplated the flooding that was probably happening down by the noble’s town. Fucker.

Neither of the first two possible spots had any man-made structures or anything magical or monstrous nearby. They were walking to the third site when Lambert noticed Aiden’s medallion vibrating out of the corner of his eye. A touch to his own confirmed it.

“I think we’re headed the right way,” he called.

“Oh thank _fuck_ ,” Aiden said. He might have been about to add something else, but a massive crash of thunder drowned him out.

They traveled through the woods for several more minutes, following the buzz from the medallions. It wasn’t really worse going than they’d already been doing, but it definitely wasn’t _better_ —no paths out here.

“Fuck I hate nobles,” Lambert groused. “Can’t just be normal fucking assholes, they have to spread their issues all over the damn place and cause problems for everybody else.”

Aiden was about to say something when there was an unearthly howl and a specter manifested right in front of them.

“ _Fuck!_ ” Aiden yelled in surprise. The penitent groaned as it looked towards the Cat.

 _Fuck_ , Lambert thought, and charged in.

“I’ll keep it busy, you find the fucking murder basement!” Lambert yelled, slashing viciously at the penitent. “We’ve gotta be close!”

Aiden nodded and half ran off towards where they’d been headed. The penitent tried to waft after him.

“ _Oh no you fucking don’t!_ ” Lambert yelled at it, and gave chase.

The next several minutes weren’t the _most_ frustrating of Lambert’s life, but they definitely deserved a spot in the top thirty. Aiden was perfectly capable of fighting wraiths, but this bullshit wasn’t going to end until they found the site of the wrongdoing that had attracted the penitent, and Aiden was the one who did shit like _engage in small-talk_ , so he was probably slightly better-equipped to know where they should be going.

“Found it!” Aiden called after way too fucking long.

Lambert glanced over to see a small log building. “That doesn’t really look like a noble’s place.”

“Glyphs,” Aiden said, pointing at the wall near the door. “We’ve got the right building.”

“Great, let’s burn the fucker to the ground,” Lambert said, holding off a sudden fit of attacks from the penitent.

Aiden tried the door handle—locked, of course—but as he was gearing up to break the door down, someone cried out from inside the building.

“Leave me be!”

Lambert almost got stabbed at that. There was _no fucking way—_

Aiden shot him a wide-eyed look. “We’re Witchers,” he called back.

“You’re—”

Lambert recognized that voice.

“ _Useless bastards!_ ” the noble bellowed. “I hired you to ensure my property was _safe!_ Instead I return to continue my autumn hunting and I am attacked by this disgusting specter!”

Aiden’s jaw actually dropped. Lambert had to agree—this had passed beyond painfully stupid and into suicidally so.

“Did you think we _wouldn’t_ find out why you had a wraith infestation?!” Lambert yelled in the vague direction of the door as he dodged a slash from the penitent.

“I didn’t hire you to investigate, I hired you to kill monsters!” the noble yelled. “And if you’ve decided to try and _blackmail me_ for more money—”

“We can’t get rid of monsters for good unless we know what’s causing them,” Aiden contributed, snarling.

“Then _get rid of this one!_ ”

Aiden and Lambert exchanged glances and simultaneously cast Aard at the door. The heavy wood of the door held, but the frame did not, and the penitent howled and ghosted past them, crossing the now-broken threshold.

The two of them leaned on either side of the doorframe, swords in hand, and waited for the screaming to stop.

“We should probably just burn the whole place,” Lambert said. He could smell the contents of the building even over the driving rain and the ozone from the lightning. There wasn’t anyone alive in there.

He could see when Aiden caught the scent; he actually winced. “That seems like the best idea.”

Lambert dug around in his belt pouch with his free hand and pulled out a couple of Dragon’s Dream bombs. He lit the fuses with a few little sparks and tossed two so they’d bounce down the stairwell and disperse in the basement, and one in the upper level. After they blew he waited a minute to give the gas time to spread, then nodded at Aiden. They both backed well away from the door and cast Igni into the space.

The gas burst into flame immediately, and the curtains and rugs in the upper room caught almost as fast. Lambert though he heard glass shatter, and there was a muffled explosion from the lower level, accompanied by the smell of chemicals, alcohol, and charred flesh. He gestured at Aiden to back up further; from the scent of the chemicals, this might turn into a slightly larger conflagration than he’d originally thought. At least the duff was too damp to catch after the day and a half of torrential rain—he couldn’t scent anything that water wouldn’t be able to put out.

Of course, because nothing was ever simple, that was the moment another dozen wraiths popped into existence around them.

“ _Fucking—_ ” Lambert bit out, and reached for the Moon Dust.

The murder basement was starting to collapse and the rain was finally starting to slow by the time they’d managed to kill all the wraiths. Lambert really wanted to sit down, but he settled for stretching.

“You all right?” he asked Aiden.

“Fine,” Aiden said, panting. “You?”

“Tired and fucking pissed,” Lambert said. “All that damn work and we’re probably not even gonna get paid.”

“Maybe we can talk some of his servants into paying us anyway,” Aiden said, always the optimist.

“Yeah, _maybe,_ ” Lambert said. “I don’t feel like trying to get back to the town today. What say we spend another night at the stupid hunting lodge? Hell, maybe we’ll get lucky and there’ll be something we can take and sell to make up for this absolute shitshow of a contract.”

“Excellent plan,” Aiden said, rolling his sword arm. “Think the rain’s going to let up any time soon?”

“Fucking hope so,” Lambert said, glaring up at the sky as another thunderclap punctuated his sentence.

* * *

“Dry off, you look like a half-drowned rat,” Lambert said once they were back indoors.

“Shouldn’t that be ‘half-drowned cat’?” Aiden asked with a slight smile, stripping out of his clothes.

“I know what I fucking said,” Lambert growled, glancing at Aiden out of the corner of his eye. His shirt had been completely transparent from the rain, but— 

Aiden looked _so_ fucking good, naked _or_ clothed, was the thing. Lambert felt it was a little unfair, given the Cat tended to put the minimum amount of work into his appearance. Aiden was kinda like Geralt like that: you could drop either one of them into a mud puddle (and Lambert had) and they’d crawl out looking just as hot as before, which was infuriating, or even _hotter_ , which was worse. 

Hell, the fact that he thought Aiden was attractive enough to want to do something about it while completely sober was infuriating too. He wasn’t _used_ to feeling stupid over people being hot, but at some point, within the last year or so, Aiden had gone from objectively pretty good-looking to just fucking slamming every button Lambert had in his head. He’d only known the other Witcher for five years, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t anything Aiden had done—nobody in their right mind, which Aiden mostly was, would want to seduce _Lambert_ , and the Cat would have told him if he’d gotten cursed or some shit—but it pissed him off all the same.

They both dried off and dressed in their spare clothes, hanging their wet things from the firescreen in front of the hearth. They’d have to keep an eye out for sparks eventually, but everything was too damp to catch at the moment. Lambert started looking over his blades rather than stare at Aiden, sprawled in front of the fire working on his own, in just braies and a threadbare undyed shirt that was riding up his stomach.

“You know, I think you might have more knives than I do,” Aiden commented, not for the first time.

“Yeah, because I’m _prepared,_ ” Lambert said, without any real heat.

“Prepared to stab yourself by accident,” Aiden said, running a grindstone along his sword.

“That happened _one time!_ ” Lambert groused. “And I didn’t _stab myself_ , the stupid cheap sheath broke. Never gonna happen again, either, I got a better one.”

“Still never gonna let you forget it,” Aiden said with a smirk.

Lambert just flipped him off and got back to sharpening.

Aiden pouted. “Sometimes I think you like knives more than you like people.”

“I _do_ like knives more than I like people,” Lambert said.

“Even me?” Aiden asked. He was fluttering his lashes at Lambert, which was stupid on the one hand, because his hair was almost white and so his eyelashes were basically invisible, but still made Lambert’s face heat up on the other.

“Yes, even you,” Lambert snapped maybe a second too late, only just keeping his voice steady.

Aiden’s face fell comically. He changed to something more neutral after a few seconds, and said thoughtfully, “Maybe you just haven’t met enough people.”

“I’ve met _more_ than enough,” Lambert said, mildly alarmed. “I can’t fucking _escape_ people, everyone wants me to solve their godsdamn problems for them, and then they try to fucking cheat me.”

“People outside of the context of the job,” Aiden said, clearly amused. “Maybe a whore somewhere? Or do you not go to whorehouses either?”

Lambert _went_ to whorehouses. It didn't matter that sixty percent of the time he got kicked out and banned for beating the shit out of the customers or the owners for hurting the workers, or that another thirty-five percent of the time, at the Passiflora, he got a massage from someone who actually knew what the fuck they were doing.

“I’ve got hands, don’t I? I’m not about to waste money on something I can do myself. Hell, if I’m going to spend money on a whore, it’s gonna be on a whore who knows how to give a half-decent massage,” Lambert said, feeling rather indignant.

“That isn’t why most people visit whorehouses, Lambert,” Aiden said, still amused. “Actually—I mean, I’ve seen you drunk, but are you actually interested in sex? Like, in general?”

“ _Yes!_ ” Lambert snarled. The fact that he was, of late, actually really interested in having sex with _Aiden_ was something he had no current plans to admit.

“There’s really no problem if you’re not,” Aiden said, not exactly ignoring him. “But I have to admit, I’m probably more interested in your sex life than the average person would be.”

“What,” Lambert said, feeling like the conversation had suddenly gotten away from him.

“I really, really like you, is the thing,” Aiden said, looking _right fucking at him._ “Not only as a friend, though if you’re not into that I’m capable of leaving it.”

“You’re not capable of leaving anything, you harassed me into being friends with you,” Lambert said automatically. He regretted it a moment later when Aiden flinched.

“Is that how you feel about it?” Aiden asked quietly, shifting to sit up.

Lambert stared, trying desperately to think of something to say to that. “It’s the only way anyone ever makes friends with me,” he said, finally. “It’s—”

“But if you don’t _want_ friends,” Aiden said, clearly upset now.

“No!” Lambert said. “I just. I can’t get rid of you.”

“‘You can’t get rid of me’ doesn’t sound much like wanting a friend, much less—” Aiden said, eyebrows drawing together in concern. “If you really don’t want me around—”

This wasn’t fucking working. Lambert couldn’t fucking _explain_ what it meant. Maybe, though— he steeled himself and grabbed Aiden’s hand. Aiden’s expression underwent a whole spectrum of emotions, and settled on something approaching confusion.

“I _can’t_ get rid of you,” Lambert said again, quieter, tightening his grip just a little.

Aiden breathed out, long and slow, and pulled at Lambert’s hand. He met Lambert’s eyes as he brought their entwined hands to his mouth, and just barely brushed his lips across the back of Lambert’s knuckles. Lambert felt a shiver go up his spine, and his face started getting hot.

“Like this, though?” Aiden said, quietly, breath across Lambert’s skin.

Lambert wasn’t sure he could speak, but he nodded.

Aiden slowly drew closer, not letting go of Lambert’s hand. “I’d like to kiss you,” he said, just audible, his nose only just not brushing Lambert’s.

Lambert nodded again, unable to tear his eyes away from Aiden’s. Aiden closed the gap and fitted his mouth to Lambert’s, and Lambert felt like someone had set off his biggest multi-chain explosion through his entire fucking brain. His eyes shut without any godsdamn conscious input, and he leaned into Aiden, who made a tiny noise and shifted, his no-longer-chapped (Lambert had made him use the salve he used on his own, because he was going fucking insane over Aiden splitting his lips by godsdamn smiling, that thing he did _constantly_ ) lips sliding over Lambert’s own.

Lambert _had_ kissed people before, even if it had been—well. Even if it had been a long fucking time ago, and he tilted his head slightly and let his tongue flicker out just to trace Aiden’s bottom lip. That got another noise, and Aiden’s free hand up against his burning-hot face, and Aiden’s mouth opening slightly against his, and Lambert was pretty sure he was melting. Then Aiden started sucking on and nibbling Lambert’s lower lip and it was apparently Lambert’s turn to make noise—he couldn’t help a tiny moan. That just encouraged Aiden, and he licked his way into Lambert’s mouth, tracing his tongue over Lambert’s and across his teeth, always coming back to the one oversized canine that was a relic of having lost an adult tooth before the Trials.

Aiden had said he liked Lambert’s lopsided grin before, but he’d always figured it was just funny to the Cat. He’d gotten into a fistfight with him over it once, and he’d stopped bringing it up after that, but— fuck, had he _actually_ meant that he liked it? Rather than try to figure out how to ask that, and for that matter rather than stop kissing Aiden, Lambert elected to put more energy into what they were doing. Aiden groaned a little when Lambert sucked on his tongue, and squeezed his hand.

They kissed for a long, long time—neither of them were quite willing to stop. They probably would have kept at it all night if the fire hadn’t popped and sent sparks flying, and nearly caught Aiden’s now-dry shirt on fire.

Aiden was laughing as he inspected the tiny scorch marks. “Maybe I should switch to wool.”

“I’ll never understand how you don’t freeze your ass off,” Lambert said, taking down his own clothes before he could end up in the same situation.

“I don’t spend the coldest months of the year up in the mountains of the northernmost part of the Continent, that’s how,” Aiden said, teasing. “Someday I’m going to go to meet up with you and find an icicle instead.”

Lambert grunted, trying not to think of the collapsed cave for the hot springs in the southern basement. There were still springs along the river and in the mountains, and if you were quick enough you wouldn’t end up too cold afterwards.

“Lambert?”

“Huh?” Lambert said, jolted out of memories.

Aiden was smiling at him, soft and wide. “Come here, will you?”

Lambert took two steps forward before he could really think about it, and Aiden caught his hand again and reeled him in.

“Sleep next to me tonight?”

“Looking to smother me?” Lambert asked. Aiden wasn’t actually as bad as that—hell, Lambert tended to drift closer to a source of warmth, but if he’d ever been one to wrap himself around someone, it had been beaten out of him early on.

“Mm, maybe a little,” Aiden said with a smirk.

“We still have to take care of all our gear,” Lambert mumbled, looking away.

“I know,” Aiden said with a grin. “Remember you’re going to help with my chestpiece for figuring shit out.”

“I never fucking said that!” Lambert complained.

“But you’re gonna, aren’t you?” Aiden asked.

“Fine! Not like we’re going to be able to afford to replace it, anyways,” Lambert said.

“Thank you,” Aiden said, and brushed his mouth against Lambert’s.

He could _never_ let Aiden know how effective a tactic that was, Melitele's _tits_.

“Aiden?” Lambert couldn’t help saying.

“Mm?” Aiden asked.

Lambert wasn’t sure what to say, but he was pretty sure Aiden got him anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> Biggest warning for a serial killer keeping, preserving, and posing his victims. Never described in explicit detail, but it is present in the fic, and Lambert actively tries to keep Aiden from having to see it. I don't know if it's possible to actually skip, because aspects of it are brought up as evidence that the plot isn't done yet. They also make it possible for a ghost drawn to the serial killer for his wrongdoing to actually kill the serial killer.
> 
> Mention of sex work and sex workers.
> 
> Aiden asks Lambert some questions about his sexuality that could come off as rude or prying.
> 
> \---
> 
> I may add more to this, depending on if the smut decides to cooperate.


End file.
